Effective stacks are 450. Villain is perceived as a reg who has fuzzy fundamentals, not terrible, but not great.

Hero has a hand in MP, 9-handed action. I will not divulge my hand, but I will describe my range as JJ+, AK for the purposes of this hand.

Villain is UTG and raises to 25 UTG, folds to Hero, Hero raises to 80, folds to Villain, Villain flats out of position.

FLOP: AQ4

Hero starts counting his chips in his head because he c-bets this flop with his entire 3-bet range, being ace-high.

However, Villain donks into me for 125, leaving 245 behind, roughly one street left for an all-in.

Now, this move essentially allows me to play perfect poker against him and I believe that the move is terrible unless he happens to have AK beaten, which I would probably stack off with anyway given that this is a 3-bet pot.

Now, not knowing what I hold, what do you guys do with each component of my range faced with this donk bet? The possible hands are:

AA and QQ (which should ne obvious stack offs)
AK (in the very middle)
KK (I beat a JJ bluff)
JJ (I rarely even beat a bluff)

I think calling the flop essentially commits my stack, so if call/evaluate is an answer, please explain why.

{AK}: This depends on villain's

1. Flop donk range,
2. His UTG PFR raising range,
3. His stack off range OTF.

You called villain a regular, but you didn't give any of the relevent information for this hand...

How light have you seen villain ship 100BB OTF? If you have seen him AI OTF with less than TPTK that puts {AJ} in this AI calling range, and thus hero is justified shipping AK.

On the other hand, if you have enough hours logged with villain to describe him as a "regular", but you have never seen him AI OTF with less than 2-pair, you should not ship AI OTF.

If you have enough hours logged to describe villain as a regular, you should have some idea as to his donking range. You should be able to combine this will his UTG PFR range.

If you have seen villain raise ATs UTG, and donk his TP hands OTF, folding your AK OTF might be a huge mistake.

Granted, I haven't given you a straight answer. But that is because hero needs to have a good read here to make a good decision. You haven't given one. You have nothing more to say about villain than "a reg who has fuzzy fundamentals, not terrible, but not great."

Why not tell us exactly the HHs you have witnessed which have lead you to view the reg as "fuzzy fundamentals"?

Then we might be able to make an intelligent analysis/read.

I actually described to you my exact read.

1. I only know he is a reg because everyone seemed to know his name. I had never seen him before, ever.

2. I saw him make one play, calling off his stack with a flopped set of queens on a 4-liner straight board, getting beaten by an obvious straight.

No idea how he plays top pair. No idea if he donks only 2 pair+. No idea if AQ, KQ, or the like are in his 3-bet flatting range OOP.

is there any point to raising with any part of you range here really?

prob calling with any thing in your range except JJ which is a fold prob and KK meh puke and hate life dunno. I mean raising just allows him to fold anything he is probing/bluffing with or possibly get away from something you have crushed and there is nothing to protect against. Oby bluff raising with JJ KK sucks. even if villain doesn't realize it calling does the some thing a raising as far a committing goes.

Okay, so you have 1 HH on the guy, and other players know his name. I'd have to say this guy is an unknown. Unless you have a str8 on a 4-card straight board...

Now:

PreFlop (1.5BB) -- 9 players
UTG raises to 5BB, folds to hero with AK, hero raises to 16BB, only UTG calls.

Flop (33.5BB) AQ4 -- 2 players
UTG donks 25BB, hero?

I don't think there is a "correct" thing to do here. Whether hero should call/raise/fold depends on the type of player UTG is. Without knowing that, hero can't find the best play.

So, hero is stuck guessing.

There are two solutions to this problem.

The first is to pay attention to the 100BB stack off tenancies of the general player pool of the game you play in, and assign that range to villain. Raise/fold/call accordingly.

The other is to become better at developing reads.

I think I'm done posting for a while.

Flat everything but JJ which I would fold.

Jersey honestly like schlep said. I flat most hands here...except jj which I'd tank fold.



And then I'm jamming everything on the turn with a check. Everything else I'd assume he jams on the turn and we can reevaluate.

I'm saying this with a default play with no real reads on opponent.

Which reg is this? Description?

i dont really see the exercise value here. Maybe im missing something.

Anyhow, i just flat AA QQ, and here i hate it but have to flat ak for the split now
as i would have flatted pre with the AK. If i flatted the AK pre, i fold flop.

Fold JJ

I fold KK too. I silently thank him for letting me know he had (at least) an ace before I put more chips in the pot.

hey! its Kurt! welcome back sir

I just want to add one more thing, for my own benefit.

Regarding 3-betting live, specifically the sizing effect.

The standard online table is at least 4 years ahead of the standard live table as far as "player-pool" IQ is concerned.

There are a lot of reasons for this IMHO, which can be discussed/debated, ect.

However, the live population pool hears the online tutors discuss hand strategy on forums, in articles, videos, books, ect. A standard difference between live games and online games, even well-known pros say, is 3-betting PF.

3-betting PF is a common play online. Why? Well for a number of reasons.

So let's examine a typical 3-bet pot in an online game. For most online games, the standard PFR is 3BB. Then, a standard 3-bet size is 10.5BB. If going heads up to the flop with the blinds folding and 100BB effective stacks, each player is going to the flop with an SPR of ~4.5.

Now, in the hand given in OP, both players are going to the flop with an SPR of ~2.2.

Two completely different hands are developing. The online player is playing/planning a hand which if called gives him/her plenty of room post flop to bet/fold, even 2-barrel fold, before reaching any commitment threshold.

Whereas the live player with an SPR of ~2.2 as little to no room to play poker post flop before reaching the commitment threshold.

In the OP hand, UTG is donking ~75% of pot, which is about 45% of his/her remaining stack!

Played online, the UTG sizing of 75% pot would only be about 18% of his/her remaining stack!

That is a HUGE difference. So before we jump on the online-style banwagon, and decide to 3-bet PF to ~17.7% of effecitve stacks, we might do well to examine why we 3-bet in the first place.

Does, given how short-stacked lived games play, even at 100BB, do to 5BB standard opening sizing, change how/when/why heros should 3-bet?

Yes, absolutely.

Is that something relevant in OP? Yes.

Probably the 3-bet sizing in OP should only have been selected if hero's plan was to ship the given flop w/ {AK}.

For the record, for the online sizings, I think {AK} is a standard flat OTF given the flop and the donk. But with the 2.2 SPR, I don't think flatting is okay, if it's done w/o the plan including stacking off OTT/OTR.

(Given the online sizings, hero can call the flop, but fold later, if he/she needs to). Live he can't (or shouldn't).

Another aspect is that on-line, people aren't making their raises quite so high, either. That tends to keep pot sizes down as well.

I think you give way too much credit to villain given your lack of HH with him. In LLSNL flatting a 3bet from OOP and then donking into the flop is common from weak players - could mean he has A5. It could mean he has 99 - JJ and is hoping to buy it if you have no ace. There are still plenty of players at 2/5 that have a very wide range in this spot out of pure stubbornness.

As such I think KK is the only tricky spot here. I'm committed with AK and if he has QQ or AQ then GG. JJ is clearly a fold. KK is probably a vomit/fold since we don't know villains overall tendency to cbet OOP and Ax is probably a big part of his range; but I think we fold to KQ, JJ, TT a lot so it might be close... good one to stove.

It's in style to do this with 44 these days. Seeing it a lot.

Very good replies.

Now, for how the hand played out.

I did have AKo. I always 3bet with AKo, as there is no reason to really not to. I flat it in position to the raiser, but end up with callers behind and end up playing a multiway pot with it without initiative, which is beyond terrible, IMO. If I am the button and know I will be 2 ways to the flop, I may flat, but not with the table left to act behind me, I wish to isolate.

And isolating AQ is almost the dream scenario--we likely either both miss, I c-bet and win, we both hit an ace and I stack him, or he hits a queen and I get away.

Opponent does have AQo and gets the one flop texture that he needs.


If Villain plays the hand correctly, it goes like this:

Hero bets 125 on the flop with his entire range, and Villain probably calls, or maybe raises. I would probably level myself into calling a raise surmising that top 2+ would not play the hand so quickly.

Then, I either stack off on the turn or check the turn looking to induce a stack off on the river.

But really, riza, CAN I call the flop and evaluate with half my effective stack in the middle? Unless Villain only has AQ and QQ here and never AK, I do not think this is possible. And as many other posters said, people donk into flops with pocket pairs and weaker aces looking for either "information" or to bluff the opponent off a hand like KK.

For what it is worth, I fold KK to a donk bet from this player. I think his range for doing this is Ax.

Folding JJ and KK on multi-tone board. Don't think this is a bluff or Qx very often. Probably going with AK 'cause I think he does this with Ax to "see where he's at but will go with it anyways" kind of failure bets. AK+ going with it. Definitely flatting AAA as it makes him have so few combos/if he does happen to have a set or two-pair or the last Ax he's going with it. QQ same thing I guess.

[QUOTE=IWearSportsJerseys;24428451]Very good replies.

Now, for how the hand played out.

I did have AKo. I always 3bet with AKo, as there is no reason to really not to. I flat it in position to the raiser, but end up with callers behind and end up playing a multiway pot with it without initiative, which is beyond terrible, IMO. If I am the button and know I will be 2 ways to the flop, I may flat, but not with the table left to act behind me, I wish to isolate.

And isolating AQ is almost the dream scenario--we likely either both miss, I c-bet and win, we both hit an ace and I stack him, or he hits a queen and I get away.






i guess depending on your villains, if they are raising utg with QJ KJ KQ etc and will call an $80 3 bet with it OOP, then i would agree. I just dont see this.

And if not, then what is the plan when 4 bet? We have turned our hand into a bluff and believe me when i say our AK sucks vs their 4 bet range. 3 bet folding it is not something i want to do either.